Propaganda created, saved, and supported

posted at 5:00 pm on October 15, 2011 by Karl

The Obama administration’s latest tactic for selling its jobs bill is to claim it will “support” 400,000 jobs (primarily in government). Ed Morrissey notes this metric is as unmeasurable as jobs “saved or created” by Obama’s failed stimulus law, which is a good springboard for underscoring a crucial point about the 2012 campaign.

Ace — as he occasionally does — recently buried this key point in a piece on media “fact-checking.” He noted that the Associated Press criticized Rick Perry for saying in a debate that the stimulus “created zero jobs.” (Indeed, Politifact rated the claim as “Pants On Fire.”) Ace observed:

Quick question, AP: How does Obama’s “saved or created” figure stack up with Bush’s? Or Clinton’s? Or the first Bush’s?

Trick question, of course, as there are no “saved or created” figures for those Presidents. The “saved or created” figure was invented by Obama, and thusfar has been applied to exactly one president.

When they speak of Bush only creating one million net jobs through his presidency, note they do not add in the number of jobs he might have also “saved.”

This is critical, because all previous presidents were held to account by strict, simple arithmetic: Number of jobs existing at the end of your term minus number of jobs existing at the beginning of your term equals your net job creation (or loss).

It is only President Precious who added in the “or saved” figure, and this can only be estimated, and of course we employ liberal economists’ formulas for guessing how government spending translates to job “saving” for this.

Obama has lost jobs while President. Period. That is the only statistic that has ever before mattered, net jobs created or lost. There is no third category of “saved,” and even if there were, one would have to calculate previous presidents’ “saved or created” numbers (much more generous!) to find an apples-to-apples comparison.

Instead, the AP and Obama and the rest of the media insist on this apples-to-orange comparison.

And — as the so-called “fact-checking” of Perry shows — the establishment media not only let Team Obama get away with this fantasy unchallenged, but also joins in their propaganda effort.

The reflex on the right may be to shine this on as just another in the seemingly endless examples of the establishment media’s lefty bias. That would be a grave error. Given the obvious and prolonged stagnation of our economy during the Obama administration, the premise of Team Obama’s re-elect campaign is the counterfactual: It Could Be Worse. Hokum about jobs “saved” or “supported” is the very foundation of Team Obama’s campaign strategy. The GOP must point out early, often and loudly that Obama and the media want Obama to be judged by a bogus standard applied to no other president or candidate in American history. The GOP should be saying that we have lost 3.3 million net jobs so far under Obama (the truth) with the sort of discipline that the 1992 Clinton campaign told people it was the worst economy of the last 50 years (a lie). If they don’t, their nominee will be at least halfway to losing the election.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.To see the comments on the original post, look here.

Don’t forget the other category.
Jobs that will be created.
The health care law was supposedly going to create 400,000 jobs the moment it was signed and Obama’s green campaign is supposed to create millions of jobs if any of these solar companies ever actually survive.

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Glad I refreshed before posting… Though I was going to use ‘Dreamt about’… Same same…
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Obama is a mythological creature in his own time… It’s appropriate that all his accomplishment also be fantasies…
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Has anyone calculated the job performance of previous presidents using the “Saved or Created” method? Why do I have a feeling that it would show a better performance for past presidents than the Box O’Rocks currently residing in the whitehouse?

The idea of “net jobs” is ridiculous, and usually used by smug Democrats to show how “tax cuts don’t create jobs.”

You can go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and see the payroll job number curves for yourself. Just prior to the collapse of the housing bubble – an event that had nothing at all to do with income tax rates – there were 6.6 million more jobs than there are now.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there were also 5.5 million more jobs than there were in early 2001, the peak of the 90s boom that Democrats brag on so much.

Looking at these numbers in terms of “net” jobs is like having someone build a thousand houses, then getting them blown down by a hurricane. Another guy comes in after the storm and builds ten houses, then declares himself better at construction since there are ten of his houses standing and none of the others.

The idea of “net jobs” is ridiculous, and usually used by smug Democrats to show how “tax cuts don’t create jobs.”

You can go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and see the payroll job number curves for yourself. Just prior to the collapse of the housing bubble – an event that had nothing at all to do with income tax rates – there were 6.6 million more jobs than there are now.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there were also 5.5 million more jobs than there were in early 2001, the peak of the 90s boom that Democrats brag on so much.

Looking at these numbers in terms of “net” jobs is like having someone build a thousand houses, then getting them blown down by a hurricane. Another guy comes in after the storm and builds ten houses, then declares himself better at construction since there are ten of his houses standing and none of the others.

tbrosz on October 15, 2011 at 10:15 PM

This doesn’t apply to people who spend UPWARDS OF 3/4 OF A TRILLION DOLLARS in the name of job creation. Sorry.